Inside America: A Tasty, Multi-cultural Look at Life in the US

A hip new high-energy TV program is tapping into VOA’s multi-cultural talent, and attracting a young global audience with character-driven stories about life in the U.S.

Inside America, which started as an occasional TV segment produced for a VOA Persian program, relies on reporters from all 45 VOA language services to contribute entertaining stories that are uniquely American.

"Diversity is VOA’s greatest strength, which is why we want reporters from all of the services to contribute to this program and help us tell stories," says Inside America Executive Producer Dean Hovell.

The segments are hosted by Tala Hadavi, a multi-lingual Iranian-Swedish-American video journalist and professional athlete, and Arash Arabasadi, a first-generation American born of Iranian immigrants who also works at VOA’s Persian Service.

"We want to produce stories we would watch. It's that simple. It has to look great, be interesting, fun and American-centric. If we produce a story we enjoy, we figure our audience will enjoy it too,” says Arash.

One of the team’s latest adventures took them to a D.C. Sandwich shop, for a contest that pitted VOA China Branch’s Lin Yang, against the Spanish Service’s Ramon Taylor, to see who could create the most colorful, best, and most importantly, savory sandwich, which would then be featured on the shop’s menu for a limited time.

This video is an example of how Inside America strives to present a slice of life in America through the diverse and multi-cultural eyes of the reporters who work at VOA. Watch (here) as Lin and Ramon battle for the title of ‘best sandwich-maker!’